


Mad Max: Rainbow Road

by rockafansky



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Don't question it, Mario Kart AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-29 02:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11431368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockafansky/pseuds/rockafansky
Summary: Max, Furiosa, Nux, and Angharad get together for some friendly competition.





	Mad Max: Rainbow Road

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a Mad Max AU where the only thing that gets hurt is Nux’s dignity. Thanks for reading.

On a normal day, most Drivers would keep to themselves, occupied with their own separate tasks as they made their way across the wasteland. There was no time to clash with anyone sharing the road; there were jobs to do, goods to transport. Not that there weren’t the occasional troublemakers. But if you kept to your own territory and followed your schedule, life as a Driver could be, for the most part, a somewhat sleepy existence. If you wanted that.

A small group of Drivers had assembled at the day's hottest hour, and there was no mistaking it. Bystanders could already tell that a competition was inevitable, from the determination set into each Driver's features to the smell of Guzzoline that wafted through the air as they topped off their gas tanks. Engines revved under the fierce heat of the sun, and the expanse of the wasteland had never seemed vaster. Then, a single shot was fired, and onlookers recognized it as the signal to slam down on the gas.

That shot sent four Drivers barreling down one long, winding road in a fervent race to the finish.

“You can’t just go around dropping banana peels wherever you like!” shouted Nux, waving his Wii remote.

“If that’s what it takes to get you back in your own lane—” Furiosa grumbled at him. Max, who had said nothing since they began to play, didn’t bother to break up their spat. He had to concentrate on getting past Yoshi to tenth place, so that maybe he could lose this race with a little dignity.

Nux, Furiosa, Max, and Angharad all sat on one couch, squashed together with very little elbow room, so that sometimes, when Nux tried to make a hard turn he would jab Angharad or Max in the side by accident. And since the concept of Wii controllers had not been easy for Nux to grasp, all of his turns were hard. He still jerked and spun his controller like a drag racer. Max found it shocking that he hadn’t overtaken the war boy’s vehicle by now; that the Driver who had picked up a controller for the first time only hours ago was still two cars ahead of him in the race.

The tension in the room was high, and so were the stakes, since during the third hour of this, Toast had decided it was a good idea to start betting.

“What’s going on?” asked Cheedo, who had arrived at Angharad’s for their get-together just minutes ago and was still hanging up her coat.

“Mario Kart,” said the Dag, who was watching them from the kitchen. “They’ve been at it all morning. Angharad and Max are the only ones who’ve played before.”

“For a veteran player, Max, you’re not doing so well!” remarked Capable. Max said nothing, still recovering from being struck off the road by one of Angharad’s blasted blue shells.

“You know, they’ve been playing the same level since they got here,” said the Dag to Cheedo. “They’re quite taken with the Rainbow Road.”

“Are they keeping score?” Toast held up her notepad in answer. Furiosa had more tally marks under her name than all of the others combined.

“That’s impressive.”

“It would be, if I were in better company,” said Furiosa, keeping her eyes on the screen. “I’d never trust these three in the driver’s seat.”

“You got lucky!” bawled Nux.

“Twenty-seven times?” asked Toast, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s not luck,” said Furiosa, making a sharp right turn. “I’m not lucky. It’s… _this!_ ” She pressed the B button on her controller, sending a floating squid into Nux’s windshield. His vision smudged with ink, the war boy cried out in distress, climbing to sit on top of the couch as if it would help him see better. Max finally managed to maneuver his Bullet Bike around the war boy’s Dragster, bumping his Donkey Kong up to ninth place.

“Single digits, Max!” noted Toast with a grin. “An improvement.”

“Hmph.”

“Furiosa, stop running me to the edge of the road!” Angharad protested. “That’s the fourth time!”

“Sometimes, you have to make sacrifices!” said the Imperator, leaning forward in her seat as if, in First Place, there were any more karts she could pass.

With one lap down and two to go for most of the Drivers, Furiosa’s lead had increased enough for her to pass them all a second time. Lap Three. Since she was among the other player-controlled karts again, she felt it necessary to run her friends off the Rainbow Road once and for all.

“That was unfair!” shouted Angharad, after her Daisy was hit with another red shell and pushed over the side for the fifth time.

“Unfair’s the name of the game!” howled Nux, who was grinning despite being full laps behind the others, continuously pushing himself off the side of the Rainbow Road and falling into space.

“The name of the game is _Mario Kart Wii_ ,” Furiosa told him, slamming her Jetsetter into a Item Box and positioning herself directly in front of Max.

“Oh no,” he heard Capable say from the kitchen, and that was the only warning he got. With that, Furiosa’s kart released a banana peel directly under Max’s front wheel. The dirty trick sent his Bullet Bike spiraling out of control, throwing Donkey Kong right over the edge of the Rainbow Road, and into the dark abyss.

“STAY IN YOUR LANE!” Max burst out, slamming his fist down on the armrest. Nux was so startled he fell backwards off the couch with a _thud!_ Furiosa almost dropped her controller.

Within an instant, her shock turned into something more like glee.

“I think I like this game.” She grinned. Max rubbed at the back of his head, staring down at the carpet.

The next moment, the Imperator’s Jetsetter crossed the finish line with a blaring but not entirely unpleasant (unless you came in last) victory fanfare. Nux jumped up from behind the sofa.

“I won!” he cried in disbelief. “I did it!”

“You’re looking at the wrong screen,” noted Toast.

“I am awaited in Valhalla!”

“You’re in twelfth place.”

It took some convincing to prove to Nux that he was not, in fact, Furiosa’s victorious Bowser avatar and the glorious victor of a true test of skill, but the hapless Dry Bones that had been in twelfth for the past two laps, never completing the race, throwing itself over the edge of the Rainbow Road again and again until time ran out. Capable called it a metaphor.

Max would have found it a lot funnier if he hadn’t finished in eleventh.


End file.
